Bangalore: Moeen Ali is tired. After a long, delayed flight from Nagpur, and an hour sitting in heavy Bengaluru traffic, he looks it as well.
Beyond that, it has been a particularly exhausting winter, which actually began in late September, when he boarded a plane to Bangladesh. You could scarcely blame him if thoughts were beginning to drift towards home.
A long-overdue family holiday awaits, and then a short One-day International tour of the West Indies in March. Following which, many of his England teammates will hope to return to India in the colours of an Indian Premier League franchise. But Moeen will be sitting this bit out. Instead, he will be taking his family to Makkah.
For Moeen, a devout Muslim, turning down the big bucks of the IPL for a religious pilgrimage was a no-brainer. “We’ve played so much cricket lately,” he says, tugging at his beard periodically as he talks. “I’d love to go and play [the IPL] at some point, but I’ve got to manage my own body and schedule. It’s not all about the money. Sometimes you have to think about other things.
“I’ve got a family. My parents are getting older, and I want to spend time with them too. It’s not always easy to get that downtime, and when you’re always on the road it can be mentally tiring, and you get fatigued. There’s more to life than cricket.”
This will be Moeen’s second trip to Makkah. It will be a shorter, more relaxed visit, known as the Umrah. When he was 22, he did the Haj, the mandatory pilgrimage that all Muslims must undertake if they are financially and physically capable. “It’s one of the five pillars of Islam,” Moeen explains. “You have to go once in your life.”
So Moeen flew to Saudi Arabia and joined millions of his fellow pilgrims, slowly circling the Kaaba. “The noise and the numbers,” he remembers now. “There were about 4.5 million people there, and you move so slowly. You follow the footsteps of Ebrahim. It’s difficult, but very rewarding. I didn’t want to come back.”
Did he get recognised? “Nah, I was only 22,” he replies. “There weren’t many Worcestershire fans out there.” It may or may not be coincidence, however, that on returning from Makkah, Moeen went on to enjoy the most successful season of his career to date.
So there is that to look forward to. But Moeen’s long winter is not quite at an end yet. Tomorrow, England and India will meet in the final Twenty20 game, the last of their 11 engagements across all formats, with the series poised at one apiece.
No rest for the wicket-takers. Moeen is one of a handful of players who has been there for the lot: the crushing 4-0 defeat in the Test series, the traumatic first two one-day internationals when England scored 350 and lost both times, and finally the fleeting resurgence that has injected a little of the pride back into English cricket.
“At one point I thought we weren’t going to win a game on this tour,” he admits. “But in white ball cricket, I think we’re a very good side. We can go anywhere in the world and play quite well.”
Moeen has been at the vanguard of England’s fightback, going for less than a run a ball in each of their last three matches. “I feel like I’m getting better as a one-day and T20 spinner,” he says. “Even at the back of the ODIs, I felt good. I didn’t pick up any wickets, but I felt I bowled quite tight. I’m not a mystery spinner like Adil Rashid, with a lot of skill. You’re just trying to do one basic thing: keep it as tight as you can and build pressure.”
The Bengaluru surface is expected to be another slow, testing track — during last year’s world T20, no team managed to break 160 on it. But England’s confidence remains high after their narrow defeat in Nagpur on Sunday.
“We should have won that comfortably,” Moeen insists. “It’s not easy coming to India against this batting line-up and restricting them twice to 150. If we do the same thing, we’ll beat them.”
England have certainly earned their break. But before that, they will want to seal the series, to leave India with something at least. And so Moeen and his teammates prepare to go again: one more push, one more effort, once more around the block.
— The Telegraph Group Limited, London 2016
